OAS and Spain organise cyber-exercises to strengthen cyber-security capabilities

USPA NEWS - The Organisation of American States (OAS), the National Critical Infrastructure Protection Centre of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the National Cyber-Security Institute of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism have launched the 1st International Cyber-exercises - CyberEx 2015.

CyberEx 2015 will include the completion of a cyber-exercise by the Member States of the Organisation of American States (OAS) to enable the strengthening of response capabilities regarding cybernetic incidents, as well as improved collaboration and cooperation in these issues. This experience will involve teams of cyber-security experts working at various Cyber-security Incident Response Centres in the 34 OAS Member States, as well as any Observer States of the organisation that may be invited to attend. Participation by countries, with a total maximum number of 45 teams, will enable them to each create a group made up by professionals from various fields, as well as for inter-institutional collaboration to be strengthened.

Sources from the Council of Europe have revealed that over 1.5 million users worldwide become victims of cyber-criminal attack every day. The support for qualification of Latin America centres is particularly interesting because, according to the United Nations Organisation, Internet use in Latin America is increasing at one of the fastest rates anywhere in the world: 355 million surfers.

The entire exercise and its preparatory sessions will take place online. The cyber-exercise will take place on 24 September in a CTF format (Capture the Flag). This format is based on a cyber-security competition model designed to serve as a training exercise that enables participants to be given experience in monitoring an intrusion, as well as work to be done on reaction capabilities in response to similar cyber-attacks that happen in the real world. The work sessions will take place between 16 and 28 July 2015.

All Member States of the organisation will be eligible to take part: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas (Commonwealth of the Bahamas), Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica (Commonwealth of), Ecuador, El Salvador, United States of America, Granada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

These cyber-exercises form part of a partnership agreement that currently exists between the OAS and the Government of Spain for the development of various cooperation actions that seek to strengthen international protection and levels of resilience. Recently, a joint operation with investigators and judicial authorities from six different European countries, supported by Europol and Eurojust, has dismantled a major cybercriminal group during a coordinated action in Ukraine. Five suspects were arrested and eight house searches were carried out in four different cities in which were seized a variety of computer equipment and other devices for further forensic examination.